This invention relates to hard packaged syringes and more particularly to tamper-resistant packages of this type.
Relatively hard plastic containers are often used to package medical syringes such as hypodermic syringes, because this type of packaging generally provides better product protection than pliable packaging, such as envelopes formed of a plastic film and the like. Hard plastic syringe packages generally include a sleeve containing the syringe and a removable closure member.
To insure that a hard packaged syringe has not been previously opened and tampered with, the removable closure member is sometimes spot-welded or thermo-welded to the sleeve. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,820,652; 3,272,322 and 3,008,570 show packaged syringes in which closure members are fused or are otherwise spot-welded to other members of the package and which are broken when the packages are opened. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,775, a closure member is heat-sealed to a flange on the syringe barrel and provided with a circumferential groove that produces a weak portion that is broken to open the package. A person finding the connection formed by a spot-weld or a container part that is broken, will of course be apprised of the fact that the package may have been previously opened and that the syringe may no longer be sterile.
One of the disadvantages of the spot-welded type of tamper indicating means is that the welded area must be limited so that excessive forces are not required to open the package and, as a result, the welds sometimes inadvertently become broken during manufacture or other handling. When such packages are discovered, they are discarded as unsafe. In that type of construction where a plastic portion of the package is broken in order to open it, the package is also subject to inadvertent breakage or the package is difficult to open.